ABSTRACTIf past ground‐water movement in the vicinity of contamination could be shown pictorially, determination of the extent of contamination would be facilitated significantly. Furthermore, if pictorial representation of future ground‐water movement under presumed conditions reflecting alternative plans of contaminant removal or containment could be provided rapidly, an effective plan could be developed speedily and thus economically. A flow path and arrival time plot, which is developed through the use of a flow system kinematics mathematical model, provides such visualization of ground‐water movement. Contrary to the popular notion that the kinematics model requires much more geohydrologic datathan the finite difference or element models, it was found that meaningful kinematics models could be developed based on relatively limited data. Presented in this paper are: a brief description of the development of flow path and arrival time plots, information obtainable from such plots, an example of the use of the plots in determining the extent of contamination of ground water, and an example of the use of the plots in formulating a contaminant removal